Barcodes and Swipes
by Besaster
Summary: Seth stared at the screen; he'd almost missed the profile from how quickly he was swiping left. He couldn't believe his eyes. Mox, thirty years old. No description. He'd seen the guy before; he was an NXT wrestler. AU. Seth moved to Tampa to rebuild his dream and get ready for the NXT tryouts. While working at a convenience store, he receives a Super Like on a dating app.


**Summary:**

Seth stared at the screen; he'd almost missed the profile from how quickly he was swiping left.

He couldn't believe his eyes.

Mox, thirty years old. No description. He'd seen the guy before; he was an NXT wrestler.

.-.

AU. Eight years after his career-threatening injury, Seth moved to Tampa to rebuild his dream of being a wrestler and get ready for the NXT tryouts. While working at a convenience store, he receives a Super Like on a dating app that may change his life. Or not.

:.

 **Notes:**

What the hell is this? Don't ask me, I've been having weird inspirations and experimenting with different stories. Hopefully getting this out of my mind will help me go back to my baby, ALAWKTT!

Enjoy!

:.

 **Chapter 1**

"No… that's not the one I always buy, give me the other the one with the blue package. I think it's that brand; I can't see from here it's too high for me."

Oh boy, Seth wanted to rip all the big toilet paper packs off the top shelf and bury the old lady in them as he tried not to fall off the unsteady stool. Maybe that way she would decide after over ten minutes.

" _This_ one, Mrs. Holland?" he gritted between his teeth, showing the lady a different brand.

The lady looked at him like she smelled shit, or like he was retarded. "No, not that one. You know what son? I still have a full package at home, will get the toilet paper another day."

Seth's lips tightened and his eyes narrowed in a very fake, bleak smile he hoped came across as polite instead of screaming bloody murder.

Working at a neighborhood convenience store didn't really have any complication, but was annoying as hell. Seth liked that he was mostly left alone, sitting at the cashier area to wait for customers to come and pay their shopping. But there was always the early morning rush, when all the neighborhood elders would come back and drive him crazy.

He wasn't a patient man, at least not with people.

Being thirty years old and working early morning shifts on a convenience store wasn't something he wanted to do with his life.

Seth certainly never expected he would be doing this at his age, but that was the best thing he'd found and it was enough to pay his half of the rent and allowed him to assist the wrestling academy lessons.

Long gone were the times when he was a promising twenty-two-year-old indie darling known as Tyler Black. Back then, the internet buzzed with his appearances in small promotions like Ring Of Honor.

It all disappeared when he suffered a career-threatening knee injury during the first round of tryouts for New Japan Pro Wrestling.

Self-exigent as ever, he over-trained to the point of not giving his body any recovery. In the middle of the tryouts during a wrestling exhibition against a much heavier competitor, his knee had collapsed during one of his trademark transitions and his whole world had gone to hell.

Seth had to ditch his immediate plans to become a star in Japan and instead of spending the following two years traveling around the world and honing his craft, he'd spent them on a knee brace and struggling to pay for the treatments needed to recover.

His family helped him all they could, to the point of getting into debt themselves to help him pay for the surgery, and rehab sessions had come slower and more sporadic than needed, delaying his recovery.

But he'd done it.

When he was younger, he'd always thought that the only obstacle he would find to make his dream a reality was being gay, which he'd hidden from wrestling promoters and fellow colleagues. But life is ironic like that, what brought him down was his body giving up instead.

Struggling with a depression for several years, working three jobs, seven days per week in the Quad Cities so he could stay at his parent's home and not spend so much money. Living on the most basic expenses and in small shared college student rooms after a few years and with the help of his family, he'd slowly managed to pay his medical bills and slowly recover his knee.

During the early morning rush, as he sighed thinking about the coffee chilling on his desk, and scanned the groceries from a regular customer, he kept telling himself why he was doing this. Seth could hear his phone buzz with a notification under the desk, but he couldn't check it out yet.

He'd spent the last two years rebuilding his body so he could go back to what he did best, what he yearned.

And finally, four months back and after eight years, his finances had settled enough that he'd decided to make the move to Tampa and enroll in a small yet reputable wrestling school.

Seth managed to find himself a full-time job on a small convenience store in a middle-class neighborhood, a decent room he could afford without too much struggle and was accepted on the academy to condition his body back for wrestling and plan on his comeback.

So he worked six days per week, eight hours per day. And once he was done, he trained and got ready to rebuild his career.

On the weekends, he would also wrestle on small local venues with the promotion, again using his Tyler Black name, but apparently, none of the few fans attending those events remembered him anymore.

He didn't care about that though, it just felt that good. The thrill and adrenaline rush of being in the ring, the danger of the moves… The love of his life was wrestling and it just felt right to throw himself back into its arms.

There was a purpose on his move to Tampa, and it was getting himself into NXT, WWE's developmental system, which was basically a star factory and the only way to get his feet into the biggest wrestling company in the world.

He was getting ready for the tryouts at the end of the year, so he still had several months ahead to get ready.

Going back to training had proven that, while losing a step or ten, he could still perform several of his old moves. He just needed to polish them and get rid of the rust.

No matter what anyone told him at the school, he knew he could make it and that NXT would be the place where he would rekindle with his full potential.

Seth had a life motto, he could achieve anything he wanted if he worked hard enough, and he wasn't going to let go of his dream. He was confident that he was still _that_ good, and that's what helped him get through everything he had to crawl until he got there.

"Thank you, have a nice day," he said absently to the customer and took a look around. There were no more customers in the shop at the moment.

He sat down and brought the styrofoam cup to his lips, the coffee was already cold, but he needed the caffeine. His shift had started at 6 am, and he'd been up until 2 am because of a wrestling event he'd worked an hour from Tampa the previous night, so he was mostly running on caffeine and donuts.

Seth also knew if he made himself another, customers would come in again and he would be back to point zero.

So he sipped on his cold coffee and suddenly remembered his phone had buzzed earlier. Pushing the button, the screen lighted up with a Tinder notification. _You've got a Super Like!_ , it said.

Seth huffed, curious to see what kind of weirdo it would reveal.

One of the downsides of being so busy all day long is that he barely had a life outside of the small convenience store and wrestling lessons and events. And, oh, well. A man has other vital needs to fulfill, like sex, for example.

He hadn't told anyone in the wrestling school that he was gay, but he hadn't denied it either. Nobody had pried though. Sometimes the guys would ask him if he found some girl to fuck already, liked any chick from the audience, or if he had a girlfriend. Questions he could reply with a simple no without going into further explanations.

Nobody seemed to suspect either since he was just like the other guys and had always been.

He'd grown up like any other boy and never felt any attraction toward guys until his teens. One day, being on the wrestling team in high school had shocked him by his body reacting to the contact with other guy's bodies.

Seth thankfully never had an issue with that, and after a short period of confusion he'd gone on with his life and experimented without any shame and his family's support along the way. So basically he'd been out most of his life, in such a natural way nobody had ever said a thing to him or thought he was different in any way.

Most of the time, people didn't even realize it, there were just no differences between him and any other guy.

He'd kept his childhood friends, who accepted him and just occasionally joked about them in the showers.

Nor did he ever experience homophobia until he was ready to enroll in a wrestling school for the first time. His coach just advised to keep his mouth closed about it since wrestling was a homophobic world and he had too much potential.

Seth didn't have an issue with that either.

What he did have an issue with, however, was the fact that he hadn't gotten his dick sucked in months. His only company had been his hands and fingers and some occasional anonymous webcam sex to jerk off with another guy and not have to see their faces.

Knowing he was getting desperate, he finally decided to download the Tinder app to try to find some easy, no-strings-attached hookups in the area.

And yes, he scrolled through hundreds of profiles on a daily basis, but he always swept left since the guys who used those apps were obviously the ones that didn't manage to get laid in real life. Being one of them kind of hurt his ego; he was too hot for them, and he knew it.

Seth had swiped left so many times and had gotten such creepy Super Likes that he tapped on the notification with morbid yet bored curiosity. Just like he was going into a freakshow in a ' _let's see how many limbs this motherfucker lacks_ ' way.

He sat back on the chair as the app loaded and the first profiles began to pile up. "… fat as fuck, swipe left. Where the hell did you get that nose? Left," he continued swiping left, scowling at the lack of anything he would remotely agree to have sex with. "Fuck are there no men or what- Oh my god," his breath caught in his throat at the next profile that loaded, the Super Like he'd been notified about.

Seth stared at the screen; he'd almost missed the profile from how quickly he was swiping left.

He couldn't believe his eyes.

Mox, thirty years old. No description.

Messy blond curls and a pair of mischievous, incredibly bright blue eyes looked back at him. Pale skin, a crooked thin smile, ginger blond stubble. A gray tank top was showing off a muscled torso and arms and a pair of washed out jeans were all he could see in the picture.

The guy was… attractive as fuck, not the best looking out there but there was something in him that took Seth's breath away and terrified him as much as it made his pants a bit too tight for comfort.

He'd seen the guy before. He was a fucking NXT wrestler.

Fuck!

Seth stared at the picture, his finger trembling with excitement as he tapped on it and slid the screen to the side to see the other picture attached to the profile.

There he was, standing in the middle of a ring with his arms open into a cross, wearing black wrestling trunks and an open black leather jacket. Droplets of water glistened on his face and chest, messy blond locks looked darker as they fell wet all over his forehead and eyes.

Shocked and curious beyond words, Seth didn't swipe right straight away.

He went back and forth between the two pictures, unable to believe his eyes. What the fuck was an NXT wrestler and not any, but the main heel currently feuding for the NXT title doing on Tinder? And with an interest in men? Weren't they supposed to be private about those things?

Was this some sort of fucking joke?

He followed NXT and knew him well, so the last thing he could think of would be _Dean fucking Ambrose_ would be on one of those apps and hitting on him.

For fuck's sake, he remembered him from his indie wrestling days. While they never met or had a match together, he was the other young indie star everybody talked about back then, when he wrestled under the name Jon Moxley.

Seth stared open-mouthed at the photos, going back and forth between them. He couldn't process this.

Somebody cleared their throat above him. "Ehem… _hello_?" a pretty, petite short-haired blonde around his age stared at him amused.

Almost falling back from how startled he was, Seth felt his face burn and his heart skip a beat or two as he looked up at the woman. "Oh- huh good morning!" he scrambled to stand up and flash a nervous smile, ignoring the curious, arched eyebrow. "Sorry about that," he muttered as he gathered her groceries and scanned them. "It'll be eleven fifty-nine, ma'am."

Seth blinked at the chirpy, not-too-sure if flirty chuckle. "Thanks, cutie," she said as she handed him the cash.

Smiling politely, Seth counted the money and wished her a good day.

He was used to customers trying to hit on him anyway, from teenage girls to the oldest women; some men had tried too, but he'd never been interested.

It never surprised him because he was well aware of how good he looked, and took enough care of himself for it to remain that way. It also made him feel slightly better about his lack of sex-life, or a life in general. Being a wrestler and working full-time didn't make it any easier.

Flopping back on the chair and scratching his beard nervously, Seth unlocked his phone again and stared at the first picture of the Mox guy. He quickly swiped right, feeling some stupid excitement as the screen turned black and the circles indicating he had a match appeared.

He _knew_ that was going to happen because that was the Super Like he got, but still.

Curiosity was eating at him, he needed to know the guy and ask what the fuck he was doing on Tinder with a seemingly gay profile.

Going into his poor selection of matches, which had been empty until now, Seth swiftly clicked on the message function and wrote a simple greeting.

 _Hey there, it's Ty :)_

Seth closed the app and left his phone on the desk again. He definitely wasn't expecting a fast reply, and the bread oven was beeping anyway, so he had work to do.

Bread being ready to sell meant things got busy at the store, so it wasn't until about two hours later that he had a moment to relax and take a look at his phone notifications.

A small smirk stretched his lips when he saw three message alerts from the app. "What do we got here?" he mumbled to himself.

 _Hey Ty, I'm Mox_

 _How come ur 5km from me and I never saw u? :P_

"I wish I knew, motherfucker," he groaned, so interested he didn't realize he was talking out loud.

 _Busy?_

Seth clicked on the message box to start typing a reply and found himself feeling somewhat insecure. There was a bit of fear on the back of his mind as he chose his words carefully.

 _Yeah, work was busy_

 _Wish I knew, nice surprise_

 _What r u doing?_

He sent the message and went back to his duties, his mind absent and going back to the wrestler only two hours left before he was finished and could release some pent-up energy in the ring.

Seth rechecked his phone before the shift handover, happy to find new message notifications from Mox.

 _Just finished my workout, gonna shower_

 _Would be a lot funnier if I had company don't u think ;)_

With a widening smile Seth could feel crinkling his eyes, he couldn't help but feel a bit aroused at the suggestion. It looked like Mox didn't beat around the bush, he liked that. Direct people, no bullshit.

That and the fact that he was desperate enough he would have gone anywhere immediately if the guy just said the words. He decided to be direct as well, but knew that now he would have to stop by home for a moment before heading to the wrestling academy or he would embarrass himself during training.

 _You'd like that wouldn't u_

 _Off to workout myself, u just gave me some niiiice shower thoughts for later :P_

Seth wrote back coyly, feeling a rush of confidence wash through him when he hit the send button. He just hoped he wasn't coming across as the huge nerd he was. His fears were more related to his wrestling career than anything else.

What Seth wanted, he got it. So now he wanted to screw the living shit of this Mox or Dean guy, or get it screwed from him, he didn't really care. And fuck him if he wasn't going to get it.

:.

 **Notes:**

As I said, I'm experimenting and playing around with different ideas lately, needing to give my mind a break from how stressful and exhausting my ALAWKTT series is to write.

This won't be a mammoth story, and I will randomly update it until it's finished.

I wanted to write from Seth's POV for a change, it always feels refreshing to me, but I'm still struggling to find his voice, playing around with him to see what can come out.

Are you surprised by Dean being on Tinder? lol

What are your thoughts on this? The only benefit I get out of writing this is my own enjoyment and (hopefully) yours, so please feel free to let me know what you think -comments are open to guests too-! What you liked, what you didn't or hated, what you think will happen or anything you want to share with me.

You can also drop me a line on Tumblr (Besaster) if you want to, you also may enjoy that I keep posting previews, updates, and random bits on my writing and Ambrollins every now and then in there.

Thanks for staying with me, see you VERY soon :)


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